Coffee or food? Which one would I give up? Coffee in the blink of an eye (Civil War soldiers wouldn’t appreciate my answer).
Besides hard tack and its toughness to devour, (coined as “tooth breakers” by the soldiers); what I’ve found the most fascinating about the soldier’s diets’ during the Civil War was their admiration and immense loyalty to coffee. Coffee was a very important staple during these hard times that even the lack of proper ingredients was not going to impede the soldiers from making their own spin off “coffee.” No coffee beans? No problem! Soldiers roasted corn, beets, or even rye, brewed it and voila!
Coffee to the soldiers was comfort, a daily routine, it was the one thing that could/would remain the same in the battlefield. Coffee was normalcy to a world or war, death and unexpected turns. Coffee was a taste of home.
The soldiers obsession over coffee comes in a close second to my Strawberry Acai refresher (Starbucks) addiction.
